Not Quite a Reunion
by Sarah1281
Summary: When Samuel doesn't die shortly after seeing Sam with his soul for the first time, there's a lot Sam wants to ask him but somehow he doesn't think he really wants to know. But Castiel wasn't always there and it's not like Dean's ever willing to give him answers about the monster he was for a year and a half.


Sam stared at the man across the room from him.

He wasn't just _any _man. This was Samuel Campbell. This was his grandfather, this was his namesake, this was his year-long hunting partner.

This was the man who had given them over to demons on the chance that the King of Hell, of all people, would bring Sam's mother back from the dead.

He didn't remember any of this – well, nearly – of course but it was still a little…problematic. He had Dean's own, memory intact, anger to go off as well and no positive memories of that soulless year to endear Samuel to him. He couldn't promise he and Dean wouldn't have done something similar to save each other but, well, this was Samuel screwing with them to save someone else so it was different.

And it wasn't as if he'd _oppose _his mother coming back for all he had serious doubts she'd be happy to come back after being nearly thirty years dead. She'd have no legal identity, the world had moved on without her, her husband was dead, her sons had been raised in the life she had wanted so badly to keep them from, they'd both clocked some quality time in hell…and then how her own father would give her sons to demons to save her.

Mary Winchester seemed to still be dead and was probably happier that way after everything that had happened. Not that Sam was an expert on his mother, of course. If Crowley actually did as he said then Sam could work with it. But for now there seemed no real benefit to Samuel's betrayal.

"I can _feel _you judging me from here," Samuel remarked, glancing over at him.

"It's hard not to," Sam said, meeting his gaze unapologetically.

Samuel laughed derisively. "Boy, you don't even remember me before today."

"So? I don't remember the night that Mom died, either, but I still managed to find it within myself to hate the demon that killed her."

Samuel's eyes flashed. "Fair enough but I hardly killed your mother, Sam."

"No, you just tried to kill me and a family member that I _do _remember."

"You're clearly fine," Samuel said dismissively. "Better, even, than the last time I saw you. And it was just unfortunate collateral, something you should know all about. You may not be my daughter and I will _always _choose her over you but I didn't exactly _want_ to kill you."

"I'm really glad you cleared that up," Sam sniped. "I feel so much better about this whole situation."

Samuel stared at him for a long moment. "How can you stand there and judge me after everything you've done?"

"Are you talking about things like starting the apocalypse that are actually fair to pin on me or any of the things that happened while I was stuck in hell?" Sam demanded.

"Oh, I think that starting the apocalypse is enough," he replied. "Never in my wildest dreams could I ever do anything near that bad, not even if I sell you and your brother to Crowley another half a dozen times."

"Yeah, well, it's not like starting the apocalypse is the bar for bad behavior and anything less than that is fine."

"Oh, you're quite right about that," Samuel agreed pleasantly. "But let me tell you, Sam, I travelled with you for a year and, believe it or not, I was the moral center of our partnership. I don't even want to _know _what would have happened if you hadn't been humoring me."

From what little he understood, that didn't surprise him. He had tried to kill Bobby to keep his soul away while Samuel had betrayed his grandsons to save his daughter. Without his soul, he was a cold-blooded psychopath. He'd threatened Cas because he'd been too busy fighting a war (a war to save humanity!) to help them. He'd clearly done his best to subtly tear Dean from Ben and Lisa and the normal life Sam had wanted so badly for him. And why? Because after a year of not even telling his brother he was alive (and he _knew _what hell it was to have a brother in hell for just four months) he suddenly decided that Dean could be useful to him. And he'd have killed Dean in a heartbeat had it given him some sort of advantage. Who even knew what he'd done that Cas hadn't been there for? Dean sure as hell wouldn't tell him.

"I was literally soulless," Sam forced himself to say. "The real me was stuck in hell with Lucifer. Any virtues I might have were MIA. It doesn't mean anything."

"Do you really believe that?" Samuel asked, his lip curling contemptuously.

No.

He didn't.

Even without his soul, there had been on outside influence making him do those things. If a normal person lost their soul they might lose their morality but would they really do the things Sam had done? He couldn't know but he doubted it. Dean might say normal people just didn't have their resources and it didn't make Sam worse but Sam didn't know if he believed that.

"It's the truth."

Samuel laughed. "It's so easy for you to say that when you don't even remember."

"I know what happened," Sam said flatly. "Maybe not every minute of every day but enough."

"Do you?" Samuel challenged. "Do you really? How would you even know?"

"Do _you_?" Sam countered. "You don't know what they told me."

"I know your brother well enough to doubt he's going to tell you all the horror stories and he was off playing house most of the time anyway," Samuel said.

"He's not my only source of information," Sam said curtly. "And I know I did plenty once hooking back up with Dean."

Samuel nodded thoughtfully. "Did you know about the spiders?"

Sam grimaced. "Yeah I know about the spiders. I _remember _the spiders."

"So you understand why I' not looking to be judged by the likes of you," Samuel said. "Your brother's self-righteousness when he quit the second he was alone is grating but at least I can be reasonably sure that _he's _never beaten the crap out of law enforcement to save himself an awkward confrontation. He's never used an ally as bait without telling him. He's never casually killed said ally and a whole bunch of other innocent men because they might be monsters."

It would seem Sam hadn't told Samuel about what had happened with Dean in hell or surely he'd bring that up. Not that any of that was Dean's fault or any of Samuel's business.

"They _were _monsters," Sam said quietly. "That ally you mentioned? Roy? The fire and the bullet didn't kill him, didn't kill any of them, and Roy started killing."

"So I guess that was on you."

"You were there. You didn't stop me."

Samuel snorted. "You weren't really the kind of guy you _stop_. And I never signed on to be your keeper."

"Still, that puts some of it on you."

"Sure," Samuel agreed. "But less so than on you. Do you know about that bartender you killed?"

Sam kept himself still. "No."

"We were hunting some demon, it wasn't a big deal," Samuel said. "He ran into a bar, took the girl hostage. He thought it would save him."

Sam could only imagine what happened next. He didn't want to ask. But this was on him. "I killed him anyway and she died?"

"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you? Maybe he'd have killed her anyway if you let him go, you couldn't have let him keep killing people. It wasn't your fault."

Sam felt cold.

"No," Samuel said, sounding strangely satisfied. "You shout her first, just to prove you didn't care and wouldn't be compromised like that. Actually told me you probably saved lives by making it clear hostages wouldn't work. I don't know if you actually believed that or just wanted me to drop it. I'm probably luck you never tried to kill _me_ and if that's what passes for good fortune the bar ain't exactly set high. All I know is that demon didn't have much time to worry about it before you killed him, too."

Sam didn't say anything. What was there to say? He had been horrified once, what seemed like forever ago, when they exorcised Meg and the real Meg had died as a result.

"That wasn't the only time but after a while I stopped being surprised," Samuel said. "I, at least, tried to avoid unnecessary collateral. "Oh…oh! Do you know what happened with Dean and the vampires?"

"Nothing good, I'm sure," Sam said tightly. Nothing good ever happened where vampires were involved. Even that time they'd found that group of vampires who refused to be monsters, Gordon had shown up and brought the monster in him.

"Well it all depends on how you define 'good'," Samuel drawled. "You were happy with how it worked out. We destroyed a whole nest of vampires, saved some idiot vampire enthusiasts, and learned something knew about the vampire alpha."

"And why would someone with a soul have a problem with that?"

"Maybe something to do with the fact that you stood by and let that brother of yours get turned so you could follow him back to the lair," Samuel said.

Sam's eyes widened. He swallowed.

"To be fair, you did know there was a cure available if he didn't consume human blood. Course, it's not like he knew that. You were worried he'd know what you did if he knew you had a cure up your sleeve and I guess you didn't want to deal with the consequences of what you did. And since he didn't know and thought he was going to be killed the minute I showed up, not that you cared about what that put him though. Since he didn't know, he escaped to go say goodbye to that girl and kid of his. He didn't drink from them but from what I understand it was pretty bad and you let him escape. You might have doomed your brother and he didn't even know why it was so important not to even take one sip, even if he didn't kill the victim."

"Are you _positive _it was on purpose?" Sam asked, hoping his voice was steady. "I doubt I just _admitted _it."

"Not in so many words," Samuel said. "But Dean saw you just standing there and you claimed you froze. Now I don't know what _you're _like but back then you didn't freeze. And, more damning, you told me you had no idea there was a cure and I knew damn well that you did."

"De-" Sam broke off, shook his head. "Dean never said anything like that."

"Why would he?" Samuel asked rhetorically. "You didn't remember. It wasn't a great brother moment. And he's clearly pretending it was a monster wearing your skin all those months. If you knew you'd have to _talk _about it."

There was nothing to say. He didn't remember. He didn't know why he did it, if Samuel's take on his actions was right. He didn't owe Samuel any sort of justification. He might need to give another guilt-ridden apology Dean didn't want to hear for something he couldn't remember.

"And so what?" he heard himself say. "So what if that's true? So what if I was a monster? Doesn't make what you did any better."

"Maybe not," Samuel said. "But I've done a lot of things in my time and that's not at the top of my list of regrets. Your brother was a stranger to me and I'm pretty sure he's the guy who brought the demon who killed me and my wife into our lives though I don't even know how that's possible. And I may have known you but it's a lot easier than you'd think to sell out a monster."

There was something to that but Sam couldn't just accept that Samuel hadn't been wrong to do what he did. It wasn't as if he was even _sorry_.

"Well I'm glad that your conscience is clear," Sam bit out.

"You know what? It is," Samuel told him. "I saved you and your brother more than once. And I had my reasons and you were working with Crowley too. Both of you were. I'm not exactly proud of it but if it gets me Mary back then it's all worth it."

"Do you _actually _believe he'll keep his word?"

"I have to."

They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence.

Eventually, Samuel cleared his throat and said. "We may see each other again. Since Dean has oh so magnanimously decided not to kill me, I'm going to keep hunting. I'll need to find a new partner and I doubt I'll be able to pull many more Campbell cousins out of my hat."

"You should probably make sure whoever your new partner is isn't possessed," Sam found himself saying.

Samuel rolled his eyes. "Ideally, yes, but am I really supposed to douse him with holy water every time he leaves the room?"

"There's that," Sam agreed, "or there's this nifty little tattoo you could get that prevents you from ever getting possessed. By demons, at least, but they're the usual suspects." He pulled his shirt down.

Samuel stepped closer to examine the tattoo. "That really works?"

"Dean and I have never had any problems with it," Sam confirmed. "We've used charms in the past but the thing about charms is that if you get ambushed by demons they can take the charm off before possessing you. Happened to a friend of mine."

Samuel nodded slowly. "I'll have to look into that. Bit surprised you're telling me, though, considering."

"Don't be. It's just common courtesy and may save your life one day. Or mine. There's few enough hunters as it is and, like I told Dean, I don't want to decrease that number just because we're got bad blood."

Samuel looked thoughtful.

"What?" Sam asked, feeling almost self-conscious.

"I'm just trying to decide if the old you would have taken that approach," Samuel said. "On the one hand, he was hardly forgiving. But on the other, he was ruthlessly pragmatic. And maybe he wouldn't have taken it personally if I betrayed him to get what I wanted. He did more or less the same to Dean with the vampires and to countless others. And he did get out of there just fine."

It was strange to hear his soulless self being spoken of like he was a completely different person. But maybe that wasn't so far off.

"Well this is how _I _see the situation."

Samuel nodded again. "And I'm grateful. You may not be as good of a hunter as you were soulless, I don't think anyone could be save perhaps Samuel Colt himself, but I'd much rather have you walking around ensouled. Just better for everybody."

Sam really couldn't argue with that. "You're right. We might meet each other again. We might even need to work with each other again. And I can't pretend I'm hoping it never comes to that but it might. We decided not to kill you and, provided you don't screw us over again, we'll stick to that."

"We're not family," Samuel said. "I may be your grandfather and we may share Mary as family but you and Dean and me? We're just not. Too much bad has happened and not enough good."

"It's…enough," Sam said slowly, "knowing that you're trying to do the right thing. Knowing that even if you're working with Crowley you're still hunting and you still want to save people. I may not like you but I can respect that."

"For what it's worth, I hope you don't die, either," Samuel said. "Now I should probably go before your brother decides I'm trying to kill you again but I do hope that you can believe me when I say that."

"I do," Sam said softly. "It just wasn't enough."

Samuel sighed heavily and began to walk away. "It never is."


End file.
